ARGUMENT OF THE JUDGE ADVOCATE IN THE CONSPIRACY CASES--CONVICTION OF
THE PRISONERS.
The evidence in the case before the military commission at Cincinnati,
having closed, the counsel who represented the prisoners made their
addresses--they cannot be called arguments--and the court adjourned to
Tuesday, April 18. As lawyers who have no valid defence, observe it as
a policy to attack the Government witnesses with great fury, so Messrs.
Hervey and Wilson, true to the ethics of their profession, made a
grand assault upon the principal witnesses. Counsellor Hervey, in his
harangue, used the following language, which illustrates the line of
"argument" for defence:
"Some two hundred years ago," said the learned counsel, "there was a man
in England who swore away the lives of his fellow citizens by wholesale.
His name was Dr. Titus Oates--the man who got up what was called the
Popish plot, and by perjury and villainy, consigned many an innocent
head to the scaffold. He was assisted by a man who has, as no other
judge has, disgraced the ermine--Jeffries, who drank himself to death in
the tower, when his co-worker in iniquities and evil deeds with dreadful
and condign punishment followed him. The effort of nature to produce so
great a monster was so terrible that it required a resting spell of two
hundred years before she could produce another such monster in the shape
of Dr. I. Winslow Ayer."
We forgive him, for he was obliged to seem to do or say something to
earn his "fee." There being no arguments for defence, but only such
pathetic appeals as only a lawyer, without the least hope, would make,
feeling that his clients would expect _something_, we need not take our
space to report their remarks.
On Tuesday April 18, Judge Advocate Burnet made his closing argument for
the Government. It was truly a master-piece, complete in every part. It
was such an effort as might have been expected, of one who has,
during this long tedious trial, shown himself a gentleman, a profound
counsellor, a true patriot and an advocate of justice, whose only aim
has been to elicit truth, and be the better enabled to serve the true
interests of the country. We would gladly present every argument and
address he has made, during the trial, but space will not admit, and
we therefore invite careful attention to the following sketch of his
address:
The Judge Advocate, in referring to the accused, said:
There are two sides to this case; two sides for the manifestation of
sympathy. While here is an old, white-haired man before you, whose every
thing is at stake; while here is a father, a generous, open-hearted,
and impulsive man, whose all is at stake; and here is a soldier, who has
fought in every clime, and who has taken up his sword to destroy life
in every cause, whose everything is also at stake, yet there is, on the
other side, your Government at stake. If these men be guilty, justice to
the nation demands of you this day that you should convict them, and
you must not waver. In the consideration of this case, you must bring to
your aid a power, that may be a little more than is ordinarily given
to human nature. You must, for the time, sink all hatred, malice, even
human sympathy; and rise, God-like, to determine the truth and adjust
the punishment.
That these accused would enter upon the commission of so heinous a
crime, I can scarcely permit myself to believe. They have made a strong
appeal to your sympathies. Each counsel has advocated the cause of his
client with an earnestness and an eloquence that does him honor; I shall
always respect them, and bear them in kindly recollection.
But there seems to have been something, during these four years of the
nation's trial, that has appeared to paralyze the native instincts of
the American heart. This phantom, this siren of secession, with her
enticing song, seems to have lulled to sleep the better part of human
nature. At the sound of her voice, and the flash of her eye, men have
sprung to arms, to grapple with the life of the nation, because it
was free! They have followed, at the beck of the siren, over desolated
homes; they have trampled over the dead corpses of murdered brothers,
and innocent women and children. They have blackened the land with
desolation, and made it the abode of moaning and woe. She has blinded,
while she has demoralized them. Old men, forgetting their white hairs,
have joined in the conspiracy at the beck of this phantom, who has taken
out of the human heart its heaven-born instincts, to plant there those
of vengeance, and the thirst for blood.
My tongue falters as I look over this country and see bereaved widows
and orphans, the white-haired patriots that mourn for the first-born,
that shall ne'er greet them, and those who sit at the desolate hearth,
with hands upraised, waiting for the knock that will be but the
death-knell of all their hopes; and think that the phantom of secession
has caused all this!
Men who were kind fathers, kind husbands and noble patriots, have
forgotten it all in a day, and have become traitors, and inculcated
doctrines that have, by the hands of fiends, stricken down that
patriotic and noble leader of the human race. There is something in it
which no man can comprehend. The doctrines which they inculcate harden
the heart, and nerve the arm to crime, enabling them to commit robbery,
arson and murder, for all is in her category; and as they commit those
crimes, the appeal to God for the justness of their cause. That is what
has deceived these men; it is this accursed phantom of secession that
has blinded their eyes; that has cooled their hearts and filled them
with vengeance. It is this that has changed and perverted the human
instincts, that should have ruled in their breasts.
Of this man Walsh, I have simply this to say: The evidence is as you
have seen it. I have briefly sketched it; I will not dwell upon much
that ought to be said; I can not. The testimony is voluminous, filling
2,000 or 2,500 pages. I have had but a few days to scan through it; I
have given you only the leading points, and you must judge. I would not
say one word that would take from this family their father; but if this
man was guilty of this crime, or has aided and abetted this conspiracy,
you have but one duty to perform. You must know no man, be influenced by
no bias, betray no sympathy, but must be firm in the performance of your
stern duty. There are thirty millions of suffering people in this land,
and against these, one man's life, if guilty, weighs little in the scale
of justice. We have, unhappily, in the history of this war, frequently
seen sympathy manifested for criminals, rebels and traitors--those who
have brought this great injustice upon the true and the loyal. It is not
mercy to acquit those guilty of cruelty to a people who are struggling
for their very existence; it would be cruelty to our brave soldiers, and
to those who have been left widows and orphans.
As to Judge Morris--for his white hair and old age, I have only respect.
For all that is worthy in him as a citizen, I do him reverence; but if
this white-haired old man has engaged in a conspiracy against my nation
and my country, I turn to the other side, and see white-haired patriots
who mourn in sadness because such as he have done these evil deeds,--and
I remember Justice!
As to this man Grenfel, I confess I have no sympathy with him; no
sympathy for the foreigner who lands in our country when this nation is
engaged in the struggle for human right and human liberty, and who takes
part in the quarrel against us, and arrays himself on the side of those
who are trying to establish tyranny and slavery. I have no sympathy for
the man whose sword is unsheathed for hire and not for principle; for
whom slavery and despotism have more charms than freedom and liberty.
The motive of such a one does not rise even to the dignity of vengeance.
As has been said by his counsel, his sword has gleamed in every sun,
and has been employed on the side of almost every nationality, and after
this he engages in our struggle, and, as testified to by Colonel Moore,
desires to raise the black flag against our prisoners; and after men
have yielded as prisoners of war, he rides up to one, and stabs him,
coward like, in the back.
But he is not true to the cause he espouses. When in Washington he went
to the Secretary of War and betrays the very people with whom he had
been fighting; tells all he knows of the strength, position and designs
of the Confederates. He said he proposed to leave immediately for
England, but he breaks his faith, proceeds to Canada, and is found among
the conspirators, and is now here, charged with these crimes to-day.
There is no throb of my heart that beats in unison with such conduct as
this. He was a fit instrument to be used in this enterprise. What to
him would be the wail of women and little ones? What to him would be the
pleadings of old men and unarmed citizens?
The delivery of Judge Burnett's argument occupied three and a half
hours, after which the Commission adjourned to meet at four o'clock
P.M., to deliberate on the findings and sentence. They accordingly met
at the hour appointed, and, after mature deliberation, finally recorded
their verdict.
General Hooker issued General Orders No. 30, April 22, in which he
promulgates the finding of the military commission which, for three
months past, has been engaged in the trial of the alleged Chicago
conspirators. The commission have acquitted Buckner S. Morris and
Vincent Marmaduke, and they are to be discharged upon their taking the
oath of allegiance. They find Charles Walsh and Richard T. Semmes guilty
of all the charges and specifications, and sentence the former to five
years' imprisonment at hard labor from the 7th of November last, and the
latter to three years' imprisonment at hard labor from the same date, at
such place as the commanding general may direct. Gen. Hooker has named
the State penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio.
Cantrill's trial has been continued; Anderson committed suicide, and
Charles Travis Daniels escaped. The commission found a verdict against
Daniels, but it has not yet been promulgated. The findings against G.
St. Leger Grenfell have not yet been announced officially; but it
is death, at such time and place as Gen. Hooker shall designate. The
commission has been dissolved.
The Chicago _Tribune_, in speaking of the sentence, says:
The trial of the Chicago conspirators has ended, the sentences have been
pronounced and approved, and the court has adjourned. Buckner S. Morris
and Vincent Marmaduke are acquitted and Charles Walsh and Richard T.
Semmes were found guilty of the entire charges and specifications, to
wit: of conspiracy for the relief of the prisoners at Camp Douglas, and
of conspiring to "lay waste and destroy" the city of Chicago. Walsh is
sentenced to imprisonment for five years from November 7th, 1864, and
Semmes to imprisonment at hard labor for three years from the date
of sentence. The findings against G. St. Leger Grenfell have not been
officially promulgated, but it is stated that he is found guilty
and sentenced to death, at such time and place as Gen. Hooker shall
designate. The penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio, is designated as the
place of confinement of Walsh and Semmes. The trial has been long,
mainly by reason of the course pursued by the defense, whose aim
has been to protract it, so as to tire out the perseverance of the
prosecution and the patience of the court and people. The court have
performed their arduous duties with great ability and fairness. The
result will doubtless be satisfactory to the people. It is proved that
this great crime was in all its naked deformity and depravity actually
committed. It follows that the Copperhead statement, published in the
rebel organ in this city, charging that the entire plot and arrest
of these Copperhead traitors and assassins were invented by the Union
Republicans of Chicago as an electioneering trick, was the subterfuge of
conscious guilt trying to cover up its tracks and to rub out the stains
of its own attempted crimes. The same organ now impugns the "competency"
of the Court. It may consider itself fortunate that it has not had an
opportunity to argue the question of jurisdiction on its own behalf
before a similar tribunal. Its opposition to such courts originates in a
feeling of uneasiness about its own safety. For
"Thief ne'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law."